Age, Biography and Wiki

Joseph Kerman was born on 3 April, 1924 in London, United Kingdom, is an American musicologist and music critic (1924–2014). Discover Joseph Kerman's Biography, Age, Height, Physical Stats, Dating/Affairs, Family and career updates. Learn How rich is he in this year and how he spends money? Also learn how he earned most of networth at the age of 90 years old?

Popular As N/A
Occupation Musicologist Music critic
Age 90 years old
Zodiac Sign Aries
Born 3 April 1924
Birthday 3 April
Birthplace London, United Kingdom
Date of death 2014
Died Place Berkeley, California, U.S.
Nationality United States

We recommend you to check the complete list of Famous People born on 3 April. He is a member of famous with the age 90 years old group.

Joseph Kerman Height, Weight & Measurements

At 90 years old, Joseph Kerman height not available right now. We will update Joseph Kerman's Height, weight, Body Measurements, Eye Color, Hair Color, Shoe & Dress size soon as possible.

Physical Status
Height Not Available
Weight Not Available
Body Measurements Not Available
Eye Color Not Available
Hair Color Not Available

Dating & Relationship status

He is currently single. He is not dating anyone. We don't have much information about He's past relationship and any previous engaged. According to our Database, He has no children.

Family
Parents Not Available
Wife Not Available
Sibling Not Available
Children Not Available

Joseph Kerman Net Worth

His net worth has been growing significantly in 2023-2024. So, how much is Joseph Kerman worth at the age of 90 years old? Joseph Kerman’s income source is mostly from being a successful . He is from United States. We have estimated Joseph Kerman's net worth, money, salary, income, and assets.

Net Worth in 2024 $1 Million - $5 Million
Salary in 2024 Under Review
Net Worth in 2023 Pending
Salary in 2023 Under Review
House Not Available
Cars Not Available
Source of Income

Joseph Kerman Social Network

Instagram
Linkedin
Twitter
Facebook
Wikipedia
Imdb

Timeline

1924

Joseph Wilfred Kerman (3 April 1924 – 17 March 2014) was an American musicologist and music critic.

1943

He then attended New York University where he received his BA in 1943 and Princeton University where he received his PhD in 1950.

While at Princeton he studied under Oliver Strunk, Randall Thompson and Carl Weinrich and wrote his doctoral thesis on the Elizabethan madrigal.

When young, he used Kerman as a pen-name, and then adopted it officially.

1949

From 1949 to 1951 he taught at Westminster Choir College in Princeton.

1950

Critical essays written by Kerman from the late 1950s to the early 1990s are collected in his 1994 book, Write All These Down, which takes its title from a phrase in one of William Byrd's songs.

1956

He based his first book, Opera as Drama (1956), on a series of essays written for The Hudson Review beginning in 1948.

Published in several languages and multiple editions, Opera as Drama expresses Kerman's view that an opera's story is key and provides the basis for the structuring of both the librettist's text (which expresses the narrative) and the composer's music (which expresses the emotions in the story).

For Kerman, the value of an opera as drama is undermined when there is a perceived disconnection between text and music.

Among the operas Kerman discussed in the book was Puccini's Tosca which he controversially described as a "shabby little Shocker".

(Kerman's assessment echoed George Bernard Shaw's earlier description of Sardou's play La Tosca on which the opera was based as an "empty-headed turnip ghost of a cheap Shocker".

1960

He then joined the faculty of University of California, Berkeley where he became a full professor in 1960 and was chairman of the music department from 1960 to 1963.

1962

His doctoral thesis on Elizabethan madrigals was published in 1962 and was notable for contextualizing them in the preceding Italian madrigal tradition.

He maintained an interest in the English madrigal composer William Byrd throughout his career, and wrote several influential monographs on his work.

He wrote a widely popular book on the Beethoven string quartets in the style of Donald Tovey.

1971

In 1971, he was appointed Heather Professor of Music at Oxford University, a post he held until 1974, when he returned to Berkeley and again became chairman of the music department from 1991 until his retirement in 1994.

1972

With his wife, Vivian Kerman, he wrote the widely used textbook, Listen, first published in 1972 and now in its sixth edition co-authored by Gary Tomlinson.

Joseph Kerman was elected Honorary Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music in 1972, Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1973, and member of the American Philosophical Society in 2002.

1977

Kerman has written regularly for The New York Review of Books since 1977 and was a founding editor of the journal, 19th-Century Music.

1981

He also received ASCAP's Deems Taylor Award for excellence in writing on music in 1981 and 1995, and the Otto Kinkeldey Award from the American Musicological Society for an outstanding work of musicological scholarship in 1970 and 1981.

1985

Among the leading musicologists of his generation, his 1985 book Contemplating Music: Challenges to Musicology (published in the UK as Musicology) was described by Philip Brett in The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians as "a defining moment in the field".

He was Professor Emeritus of Musicology at the University of California, Berkeley.

Kerman, the son of an American journalist, William Zukerman, was born in London and educated at University College School there.

In 1985 he published his history and critique of traditional musicology, Contemplating Music: Challenges to Musicology, which argued that the intellectual isolation of musical theorists and musicologists and their excessively positivistic approach had hampered the development of serious musical criticism.

Described in The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians as "a defining moment in the field", the book has been credited as helping to shape a "new musicology" that is willing to engage with feminist theory, hermeneutics, queer studies, and post-structuralism.

1997

From 1997 to 1998 Kerman held the Charles Eliot Norton Memorial Chair at Harvard University, where he gave a series of public lectures on the importance of approaching musical texts and performances via a "close reading" similar to that used in literary studies, a theme that was central to many of his writings.

1998

The Norton lectures were published in 1998 as Concerto Conversations.

2014

Kerman died at his home in Berkeley on 17 March 2014.

He was 89.

In addition to obituaries which appeared in the days following his death, two of his former associates in the field of musicology, Roger Parker and Carolyn Abbate, published some additional comments about working with Kerman in the obituary which they wrote for the British magazine, Opera.

There, they conclude that "the usual obituary language would not work" and continue:

We share a very vivid memory of Joe as editor.

It takes the form of a mysterious wavy line, which he was wont to draw in the margin of this or that paragraph we had nervously proffered.

This undemonstrative graphic gesture would say it all: telling us to think again, to re-draft, to watch the rhythms, the cadence of the words.

He could communicate so sparsely because one of his many gifts was to inspire you, as a writer, by the persuasiveness, energy, and beauty of prose; you came to live for the—rarely bestowed—small check marks that signalled approval; the wavy line could keep you awake at night.

They continue by reflecting on their own professional relationships with Kerman over the years:

2019

Joe published both of our first essays on opera in 19th-Century Music, the journal he helped to establish; he gave one of us a first academic job and lured the other to Berkeley as a visiting lecturer; he edited our first collaborative book; we dedicated our second to him.

Ever patient, ever smiling, he formed us—sometimes sentence-by-sentence.

Notes

Sources